Analysis of pragmatic speech styles among Korean learners of English: A focus on complaint-apology speech act sequences

The objective of this study was to identify patterns of second language use and the conditions that influence pragmatic language behavior through the analysis of complaint-apology adjacency pairs among Korean second/foreign language learners of English. Speech Act Theory, Interlanguage Transfer Theory, and Speech Accommodation Theory provided the basis for the theoretical framework of this study.;Data were collected from 217 ESL/EFL learners in addition to 52 English and 46 Korean native speakers. Informants participated in a discourse completion task consisting of seven complaint-apology scenarios. A focal group of 20 language learners were also interviewed post-task to better understand learners' pragmatic speech behavior. Communicative strategies, lexical repertoire, assessment of contextual variables, and effects of learner-internal variables on pragmatic speech behavior were assessed using Regression analyses.;The results indicated that Koreans and Americans shared the same range of complaint and apology communicative strategies, but differed in the ways contextual factors such as power relations and social distance influenced their preference for a certain strategy. In comparison to the patterns exhibited by English and Korean NSs, ESL/EFL learners showed evidence of target-like speech patterns, transfer from L1, as well as a unique style unlike that of their native or target language. The speech patterns of ESL/EFL learners were greatly influenced by their native socio-cultural upbringing, which emphasizes the acknowledgement of social hierarchical structure between interlocutors. However, ESL and EFL learners differed in their use of lexical downgraders and intensifiers, formulaic expressions, and communicative strategies due to the differences in their motivations and learning environments. The analysis also revealed that the frequency of interaction in English, whether it is with native or non-native speakers, had the greatest effect on the learners' speech performance to be native-like in comparison to other factors such as linguistic proficiency and length of stay in target culture. Furthermore, language learners were able to weigh the benefits and costs of their pragmatic choices. Although their use of strategies was generally motivated by their linguistic competence, they indicated that they converge to and diverge from the speech patterns of the target culture as a means to express their cultural identity.